Page 44 of Dying Truth
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’d earned your degree and studied—’
‘The first time,’ Graham clarified.
Thorpe coughed into his hand. ‘I don’t recall…’ he sidestepped, even though the memory of Graham’s first day was clear in his mind for many reasons. Although not sporting the beard at the age of thirteen, Graham’s reedy appearance and unruly red hair had not helped matters for the new boy at all.
‘There were two of us, if I recall.’
Thorpe shook his head. ‘I really don’t remember the girl, Graham. It was so long ago.’
Graham narrowed his eyes. ‘Her name was Lorraine. We were both scholarship students chosen for our sporting—’
‘As is still the practice, today,’ Thorpe said, shifting uncomfortably. Graham had been chosen for his ability to jump a long way into a sandpit. He’d been close to championship distances before hitting his teens, but an injury to his right heel had failed to mend properly, ending his athletic career at the ripe old age of fifteen.
Graham caught his gaze and held it. ‘Not easy being a scholarship kid in a place like this.’
‘You seemed to manage okay,’ Thorpe snapped. The fact that Graham had been a member of the Spades instead of him still didn’t sit easy with Thorpe. Even after twenty-five years. Graham’s father had been an assembly line worker at the Range Rover plant in Longbridge. Thorpe’s father had been a respected novelist and his mother a judge. He should have been offered the Ace of Spades instead of this buffoon.
But he was in charge now.
‘What I’m asking you to do, Graham, is help the police officers reach the natural conclusion that Sadie’s death was suicide in a timely manner. Basically I want you to get them out of my school.’
Twenty-Eight
Kim could still feel the weight of Sadie’s letter against her breast as they walked into Heathcrest.
‘Follow me,’ she said, striding through the grand hall to the corridor that ran behind the rooms that looked on to the front of the building.
She stopped at the third one along and tapped lightly. By her reckoning they had around fifteen minutes until lunchtime was over.
Kim pushed the door open and was not surprised to see Joanna Wade sitting at her desk with a half-eaten tub of homemade salad beside the book she was reading.
‘No staff room?’ she asked.
Joanna smiled in response. ‘I’m fine here, thanks.’
Again, Kim wondered what had prompted the move for this woman. Something about her didn’t fit in this environment.
‘Joanna, do you have any of Sadie’s writings that we can take a look at?’ she asked, unsure when it had become comfortable to call this woman by her first name. She wanted to compare something Sadie had written to the note in her pocket.
‘You don’t have enough?’ she frowned.
Kim shrugged. Even Joanna assumed her personal possessions would be stuffed with poems and musings.
She turned and opened a sliding door.
‘Guv,’ Bryant said, ‘I’m just gonna round up some coffee from somewhere.’
She smiled at him gratefully. Her coffee reserves had not been replenished since leaving the station.
Joanna took down a lever arch file and opened it. Kim pulled up a seat beside her as she began to leaf through the contents.
‘There was a poem she wrote just a few days ago that stuck in my mind.’ She continued to turn over single pieces of paper with different names in the top right-hand corner.
‘Why are you here?’ Kim asked, suddenly, surprising herself.
The Joanna Wade she’d met a couple of years ago had seemed more vibrant, more animated. There was something missing. It was like she’d been through the washer a couple of times and had faded just a little bit.
Joanna’s hand stilled for a second as she picked up the next sheet.
